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The day was beautiful when everything fell apart.
Madara had left on a mission days before the Hokage's wedding to Princess Uzumaki. He went on a mission to find an old ally of the Uchiha clan, near the northern border, to discuss the possibility of inviting them to Konoha. The night before his departure, Madara stood before Hashirama, the wind ruffling his untamed mane of black hair, and he spoke in that restrained tone of voice that hid his true feelings — something that always made Hashirama's heart clench when he heard such a tone.
"I'll be back in time," Madara promised.
Hashirama forced a smile, his heart still heavy with conflicting feelings, thinking of all those times they were alone and the atmosphere thickened with the possibility of something more happening...
Hashirama squeezed his best friend's shoulder tightly, feeling the warmth emanating from him, unaware that this was the last time.
"I'll wait for you there."
But Madara didn't return.
Tobirama watched his brother slowly fall apart.
On the first day after the wedding, Hashirama still maintained the mask of a happy Hokage. He smiled at the guests, thanked them for the gifts, and kissed Mito's hand with a well-rehearsed gentleness. But his eyes never stayed still — always looking around, searching every five minutes, as if he expected Madara to appear at any moment.
On the third day, search teams were sent out and returned empty-handed.
On the seventh, Hashirama stopped sleeping.
"He didn't run away!" Hashirama growled when Tobirama dared to suggest, for the first time aloud, what he knew to be the truth behind the Uchiha's untraceable disappearance.
(If something had really happened, then there should be clues to follow. Madara was never subtle. Whenever he fought, he left a huge trail behind.)
But Hashirama didn't want to confirm that possibility. So Tobirama crossed his arms and tried to be the voice of reason once more.
"Anija, face the facts. There's no way a ninja of his caliber could disappear without a trace! I've been telling you for months that Madara is unstable and that he was plotting something. You refused to see..."
The punch on the table broke the wood in half and made Tobirama take a step back.
The silence that followed between them was of the worst kind.
Hashirama looked up, and for the first time in his life Tobirama saw something close to anger directed at him. (So similar to Butsuma)
"Never repeat that in front of me again."
From that day on, the Hashirama that Tobirama knew began to disappear. Any comment, any gossip, any conspiracy theory about Madara's "betrayal" was immediately nipped in the bud. One shinobi was suspended for a week for jokingly saying that "the village was lighter without him." Another was publicly and very harshly reprimanded for daring to suggest that Madara might have deserted.
Tobirama watched his brother sink deeper and deeper and couldn't stop feeling angry — for more than a moment he wished, with all his heart, that Madara would return, but that he would return mad and dangerous, having finally succumbed to the Curse of Hatred. Only then would Hashirama see the truth and remove Madara from his pedestal.
From childhood, Mito Uzumaki had learned that marriages, especially arranged ones, were a business deal aimed at achieving interests far greater and more important than love. Love, in an arranged marriage, was often a game of chance. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn't. She was taught not to be so easily deceived.
(What an irony of fate.)
When she finally got married, she expected distance. She expected to fulfill her duties and maintain appearances. But when she met Senju Hashirama in person, she thought she wouldn't need to worry about any of those things. Hashirama was kind and engaging. It was easy to like him. He said the right words, touched her hand carefully, asked about her day, smiled constantly. For a moment, Mito had thought she was very lucky with this marriage arrangement. She thought she could turn the arrangement into something more. But reality slapped her in the face.
Despite caring about her and making sure she was well settled in her new home, Hashirama never looked at her with the same intensity he looked at Madara or the only photo they had of him — as if nothing else mattered, as long as they were together side by side.
Mito hadn't even met the Uchiha leader and she already disliked him... perhaps it was her brother-in-law's opinion influencing her, but Mito could admit she was a little too jealous of someone else monopolizing all of her husband's attention like that.
The situation was so serious that Hashirama didn't seem to notice that eight out of ten sentences that came out of his mouth were about Madara. What Madara liked or disliked. Madara's hobbies. Madara's abilities. Madara's mannerisms. Their childhood and war stories. Their shared dreams and goals for the village.
For Hashirama, it was very important that Madara be happy living in their village.
And now that Madara had disappeared from the face of the earth, Hashirama no longer laughed. He no longer spoke. He was a man in mourning, acting as if he were a widower.
Mito felt like a stranger in her own marriage. Worse still: as if she were the mistress.
Hashirama would arrive home late, dejected, with dull eyes or red from crying. He would sit at the table in silence, eat mechanically, answer her questions with monosyllables. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, she would hear her husband murmur his name in the dark, like a prayer.
On these occasions (very frequent), Mito would touch her still-flat belly and wonder if her husband would ever love their child with the same devotion and despair she felt for Madara Uchiha.
Hashirama couldn't sleep anymore. He couldn't.
Every night the scenarios repeated themselves in his mind: Madara wounded, bleeding in some ravine; Madara captured by enemies who wanted to use the Sharingan against Konoha; Madara dead, his body thrown somewhere where no one would ever find it.
"Where are you?" he whispered to himself, pacing back and forth in the office. Several maps covered his desk, red markers indicating the areas already searched.
The teams returned empty-handed.
Tobirama tried to talk about duty, that the village needed a whole and focused Hokage. Hashirama knew this, he tried his best, but at the end of each shift he was a wreck.
Mito tried to get closer, to offer some comfort that they both knew was useless. He saw how she looked at him, and Hashirama hated not being able to pretend any better. But where would he find the strength to pretend anything when an essential part of him had vanished along with Madara?
Where are you? He stared at the horizon as if he could find the answers there.
Come back to me.
Please. He pleaded with every god he knew.
But Madara was nowhere to be found.